Obama's history lesson

CLARENCE PAGE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

January 8, 2008|CLARENCE PAGE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Oddsmakers didn't give the black candidate much of a chance.

Yet, in a three-way race, the black Chicago lawmaker scored a historic victory. With eloquent oratory, charm and determination, he grabbed the spotlight and the Democratic nomination from the female frontrunner in a three-way race.

I'm referring to then-Rep. Harold Washington's 1983 primary victory on his way to become Chicago's first black mayor.

And history similarly seemed to repeat itself on the Republican side of the Iowa caucuses, too, as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee beat his own party's earlier frontrunners.

Back in 1976, another inspirational Southern governor with little money or name recognition used the caucuses to vault himself into national prominence and eventually the White House in 1976. He was a Georgia Democrat named Jimmy Carter.

Obama and Huckabee, like their predecessors, offer important lessons in a couple of basic rules of politics:

One, remember your base.

Two, inspiration is no less important than perspiration.

Obama was a young community organizer in Chicago in the 1980s and did not know Washington personally. But he says he was inspired by the late mayor. So was Obama's chief political strategist, David Axelrod, who worked in Washington's 1987 re-election campaign.

Echoes of Washington are easy to hear when Obama delivers his robust oratory about how we're not "blue states" and "red states," but "the United States of America." The late mayor similarly rallied the city to make itself more comfortable with its own diversity.

But first, he had to accomplish what Obama did in Iowa: He had to prove to his own potential supporters that he was electable. Before Washington could pursue anyone else's support, he had to inspire his mostly black and liberal-progressive base. He needed to get Chicago voters so excited that they would walk over hot coals, if necessary, to get out and vote for him.

Ordinary politics would not be enough. Washington knowledgeably and eloquently employed the visionary, earth-moving imagery of the civil rights movement. With that, he inspired voters by offering a rare gift, the opportunity to help make major history.

Obama issued that same invitation to make history, and it paid off on caucus night. Entrance polls showed he received more votes than frontrunner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina among men, women, younger voters and first-time caucus-goers. Clinton only outpolled Obama among senior voters.

If anything, Clinton misjudged her party's liberal-progressive base and their need to feel inspired. Instead, she rushed to reach out to moderates as if she already had the nomination sewed up. She didn't. Her base still has many misgivings about her electability, among other issues, including her unapologetic defense of her Iraq war vote.

As a result, while Obama and Edwards promised hope and change, Clinton projected a sense of personal entitlement that proved disastrous when the caucus tallies came in.

On the GOP side, Huckabee avoided any appearance of entitlement as he leaped from the back row of his party's hopefuls. He sounded as though he felt blessed simply to be there.

Like Obama, he promised a new politics. He was the happy culture warrior. "I'm conservative but not mad at anybody," he said. Still, he was ready to fight the insiders on Wall Street or Washington's K Street on behalf of people who are having trouble making ends meet.

The former Baptist minister gathered together a base that included Evangelicals, low-tax warriors and others who felt their party had left them adrift.

Obama and Huckabee showed how people don't turn out in big numbers for conventional politics. They have to believe that their vote has meaning.

At this stage, there's another memory of past campaigns that come to mind: Early victories are followed by fierce attacks.

Even now, opponents of both men are digging deep into their pasts and looking for mud to sling. It's a long way to the White House from here and, as the late Mayor Washington used to say, politics isn't patty cake.